


Pendulum

by Underground



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Underground/pseuds/Underground
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He may travel in a police box, keeping order, or what passes for it in these timeless times. But inside his own mind, order is exactly what he's out of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pendulum

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of the 50th, I wanted to post this throwback one-shot, which I wrote way back when, in the break between Series 3 and 4. It's just a simple character study of the Tenth Doctor, lightly shippy across the board and hence a little hard to classify. Enjoy.
> 
> Since this was written in the heyday of LiveJournal, you can find the original post on my now defunct LJ [here](http://ponderous77.livejournal.com/8203.html#cutid1). 
> 
> Happy Birthday, Doctor!

 

He may travel in a police box, keeping order, or what passes for it in these timeless times. But inside his own mind, order is exactly what he’s out of.

 

\---

_Forever,_ she answers him, and it chills him to the bone.

He knows his had been a loaded question, one of those singularly unfair questions that he never likes to ask, but always finds himself posing regardless. _How long are you going to stay with me then?_ And what response can he honestly have been expecting? _Two more months, Doctor. Twenty-five years, Doctor. Until I get bored of you, Doctor._

But the truth - the shameful truth - is that _forever_ is the only answer he wants, needs, clings to with fingers stretched by time. And worse, _forever_ is the answer he expects from her, the predictable lie that should be transparent (when he had other eyes, such lies were easy to spot, until he fell and began telling them himself) but here it is, laid out before him, a fib made flesh, and he clutches at it – clutches her hand – and finds it solid and real, if not quite right. Rose Tyler wants to stay with him forever. And he believes her.

 

\---

_Just us and no one else_. That’s all there is.

He folds over. The thought unbalances him; it sits so heavy in his brain. He clutches the phone to his ear and makes offers, many stupid offers, and if the man on the other end won’t see reason, that is only because the Doctor isn’t offering him any. But he has to try. Because this is it, this is all there will ever be. And the phone is hot against his ear, the conversation devolving into the typical madness, but what does it matter, because _forever_ is back, drumming all around him. _Forever_ has come for him again.

 

\--- 

She’s _there_ and she’s good.

The look of wonder on her face makes him smile, but underneath the smile is a hunger that increases tenfold. He needs her wonder. He needs the universe to be newly minted again. A nice fresh start, that’s the ticket. It is a regeneration in its way, asking her aboard.

He’ll do it right this time. No dropping Martha Jones off one year too late, no larking about with her family, no tough questions, no promises. She’ll be a proper friend, he thinks. He won’t let her last.

They lie in bed – and that’s not weird, is it? He told her in the TARDIS that it wasn’t like that, that he just wanted to thank her, show her the sights. (But he can’t deny that just the sound of her gentle breathing, that wistful noise in the dark, is helping him, resonating inside him, making all those solitary hours recede.)

He has someone now. She doesn’t know what to say, but she’s _there_ , and maybe for a little while that can be enough.    

 

\---

He rides the wave of change when it comes.

For once he stays standing, but before he experiences even a gleam of pride over this achievement, his brain cells percolate, rattle and shift, and he has forgotten that he has legs, or what legs are for – he has become boiling light and an eternal wind – _forever_ , _forever_ pulsing in his veins – and then with abrupt savagery he is complete. He has become someone new, and this time the realization is instantaneous, is glorious. Someone _new_. Someone different. Not a continuation, but a replacement. It will all be in the past for him now, that man he’d been (and the man before that and the man before that), and he won’t let that past ever again become present. From now on, time stays where it belongs.

The image of Rose resolves itself, and she’s just as she was when she slipped out of focus, when his eyes had still been blue – clinging to a balustrade and staring at him as if he has grown a second head. Which he might very well have done, for all he knows. A grin cleaves the new face, which bends so readily for it – a face made for grinning then, that’s good, that’s very good – and as he watches Rose Tyler’s confusion slowly mount, he feels a nearly desperate resolve. Someone new, then. Someone whose past and future refuse to intermix. Say hello, Rose Tyler. Because he’s through with goodbyes.

 

\---

The sun shines, and he may yet have an ending.

Brilliance detonates within him, in that private space behind his eyes, and his body summarily abandons all its lively uses and becomes nothing but a cage with shuddering bars. He has contained so much for so many years, but this won’t fit inside him for long.

In moments it is unendurable, his brain is alight like it has been soaked in petrol, and all pretense falls away. Precious pretense, he’s sorry to see it go, because now he clutches at Martha Jones like she is the only fireproof thing in his burning world. He wishes she could have heard his screams. _I’ll save you! I’ll save you!_ He wishes he could hear hers, her gentle reassurances, her by-the-book bedside manner, but they always seem to be shouting at each other across an impenetrable gulf – across a Void – and their voices can’t carry.

His consciousness begins to flicker, its candlelight dwarfed by blazing heat. He could surrender to it, but he won’t be born anew, he knows that now – because he never ever was, isn’t that the great mistake he’s still paying for, isn’t that why he writhes on this slab, on this spaceship, clinging to the firm elbow crook of Martha Jones, the woman whom they both know he doesn’t deserve?

Now he is alone in the light and his only recourse is to run, run like he always has, except that his legs don’t work anymore. But he rolls and crawls and drags because escaping from pain is all he ever knows how to do. And he understands, finally, that there are things older and angrier than him, _forevers_ that last longer and burn brighter. His limbo can be shattered, his suspension removed. And even as Martha Jones keeps her promise, even as that ancient visitor relaxes its hold on him and he is allowed the peace and cool of his own mind once again, he still knows that someday the running must stop. And it’s not this fact that bothers him, but his fear that the finish line will be just as lonely as the rest of the race.

 

\---

_How long have you got?_

The same unfair question, thrown back at him. He knew she would ask, had dreaded it, because he doesn’t want to turn their final moment into a countdown. He quakes in his trainers, the way he always does when his ship sways beneath him. But the TARDIS is steady now.

Why must humans do this? Why must they always insist on knowing the time, on having spans of it spread out before them in measurable chunks? It’s so alien to him, so very thick, to think that only if you mark the time are you aware of it passing. That if he were to refuse Rose’s request, if she didn’t know how long he had, perhaps she could believe that they’d be on this beach _forever._ But no, humans must insist on marking time, counting time, spending time as if it were a currency. Humans, who always want that ticking third hand, the one they see moving. Humans, who need their pendulum.

He is not human. He will be aware of time always. It is the water he drowns in.

_Two minutes._ She cries.

 

\---

The bounds of his once limitless life compress themselves into the four canvas sides of a tent.

He lies without complaint on the carpet made of straw. His eyes are closed, all his senses shut off save for the internal radar that went quiet for so many years but now emits a steady _ding ding ding ding_. Listening to this lonely signal, he plans.

He has formed so many plans here, plans within plans on top of plans, all concealing Martha Jones, the greatest plan of all. She is traveling the world, living his life, fighting the slow, intimate battles of a wanderer. He knows he should envy her, but he doesn’t. He may be gagged and trapped and spat upon, stuck in a parody of the ball-and-chain he’s always imagined domesticity to be, but he thinks, _I can do this forever._ Because the Martha plan is a smokescreen just like all the rest. The real endgame stretches beyond Martha, back to the TARDIS, with the promise of a cure for his loneliness.

He watches the Master with eyes unclouded by age, and catalogs everything he sees as if he were mentally assembling the Harold Saxon tell-all: the mockery and rage, the moments of teasing vulnerability, every crime. _I forgive you_ , he thinks, as the Master continues digging his own grave, and the future stretches out ahead of them. _I forgive you._ He can tolerate humiliation – _I forgive you_  - withstand every indignity - _I forgive you_ – maybe even watch the Earth burn -  _I forgive you, I forgive you_ – because he is happy here and envies no one. _I –for–give–you._ The words become a litany in his brain, until they lose all meaning and are just a four-part staccato, a never-ending rhythm.

 

\---

He knows he will jump before he ever sees the Pit.

When the black maw is still covered by a door – a _trap_ door, never good – somehow he already knows that a long dark tunnel waits beneath it, reaching out to him like a hand to hold. _All right_ , he thinks, _you’ve got my number._

He wants to say something to Rose. He wants to leave her with significance, because he sometimes fears he only provides her with prattle and half-dreams, forgettable things. He knows which words she might like to hear, but into that dark pit he doesn’t have the courage to fall.

He wakes up to air, a prison, and a prisoner who knows him too well. The trap is sprung, and he is exposed for what he is: a man who can’t let go, who clutches whatever comes along and holds on forever (which is just another way of saying _as long as he can_ ). But this can’t be the full story, oh no. His tempter may have diagnosed his symptoms, but it hasn't found the cause. He hates letting go because he always must, clutches tightly because otherwise things slip away. He says hello as often as possible so he can ward off goodbye.

And he knows then, as the vases are smashed and the freed creature combusts, that the best thing he can do is let go out of trust, say farewell with faith, unbind Rose to spare her the choice later. Because he can never be a man who lives without goodbyes. 

He sees the rocket climbing into the stars, leaving him in the Pit, his only company the burning thing that may be the Devil.

 

\---

_Thank you._ The most thankless thing he can say to her, and he knows he says it too often.

Martha enters his ship without knocking. The expression on her face is both vulnerable and made of raw steel; he finds the combination difficult to look at. He spreads his arms wide, that familiar gesture that always feels right – arms made for hugging - and she comes forward with an eagerness he thinks may be relief. He squeezes her tight. It’s the last time.

Everyone leaves him in the end. But these days,  _in the end_ happens too often, too soon. Two days ago he had plans and many friends to choose from. But he will slip out of today with no one. They have all refused him, and for the very first time he wonders if something may be seriously wrong with him, because it shouldn’t be this hard to keep people with him.

Martha Jones, still and steady against his chest, was the one least likely to say yes, the one he did not even have the right to ask. He lost Martha one year and two days ago, when he asked her to go above and beyond, knowing she’d succeed, that she’d do it for him (because he is the root of everything she does), and he wouldn’t be able to thank her. Or, to be more precise, he’d be forced to say _thank you_ ,the two fatal words. They are all he can ever offer Martha Jones. It’s either _thank you_ , or thick silence.

How this happened, how he ended up always facing the choice between frying pan and fire, he cannot say. He handpicked Martha, and she was better than good. She was the one he was going to do right by; he had made himself that promise. He had always left the illusions in place for Rose, so Martha was gifted with cold truths from the start. And yet somehow this ruined things with Martha as surely as pretending doomed Rose. So that’s it then, damned if you do, etcetera.

Now Martha adjusts her grip on his back. She slides her hands down until they meet each other right below his shoulder blades, and suddenly he can _feel_ the force of her embrace, the flat palms pressing firmly into him. He senses the shift and welcomes the transformation from holding into being held. He should regret this, leaning on her, taking from her, admitting to her his desperate need. But she knows, she understands him in all the ways he fears, and this is why he cannot look at her, now or ever, because he knows he will see his own crimes and her forgiveness. _(I –for–give–you.)_

He knows Martha Jones will hold him like this for as long as it takes, for as long as he needs.

She cannot hold forever. He lets go.  

 

\---

He was wrong, is wrong, and will continue to be wrong. He’s no different from the humans he spirits away. Like them, he marks time, not with numbers but with people, and their constant companions, goodbyes. 

 

 


End file.
